A blog about the garden based learning that's happening at Marquez Charter School in Pacific Palisades, CA.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

A monarch butterfly, ladybugs and some salad

Today was an exciting day in the garden for Ms. Fein's class. At the beginning of the period, Ms. Conner's class and the rest of Ms. Fein's class came to the garden for the release of the monarch butterfly that had emerged yesterday. Ms. Fein helped Ms. Conner who gently helped the butterfly out of the net butterfly house where it had lived for the last day. It was quiet at the beginning but by the end of the morning it was moving its wings. Appropriately, it was set free in the middle of the butterfly garden near some plants that it will hopefully like!

Later, some kids added greens to the compost bin while others looked at the many ladybugs that are still in the garden. The ladybugs liked to land on the kids' hands!

Our two parent volunteers assembled the salad of lettuce, radishes, broccoli, tomatoes, carrots and celery which the kids ate while observing the animals in the garden.

About Me

I am the founder of the non-profit Palisades Cares which encourages community service. We also educate the community on environmental, health and other topics through workshops and other events. For more details visit www.palisadescares.org or www.palisadescares.blogspot.com.

As a UCCE Master Gardener, I network with the community to encourage edible gardening, enhance school gardens and especially encourage young gardeners. During the school year I am the volunteer garden teacher at Marquez Charter School. The garden blog is www.marquezschoolediblegarden.blogspot.com. I also hold periodic garden workshops for children at the Palisades Branch library and publish a kids garden blog: www.palikidsgarden.blogspot.com.